1 PIECE ALUMINIUM ELEMENTS FIREWALL

[Steve Fox]

Last bight i made an FT Elements firewall from one piece of aluminium during the various stages of working it out into one part thats bent, i ended up with a card template and thought i would share it here in case anyone else wants to vive making it a try.

not the best finish but the motor mount was made with just a sharp blade, junior hacksaw and a drill bit that was not the right size ha ha

with the right tools, this could be made into a dead straight motor mount from the template.

its been scanned on a flatbed scanner, printing it on A4 from windows photo viewer as a full page print and with the box 'fit picture to frame' ticked, it should come out the right size when the photo is original size, ive had to reduce to 75% to post it here so make adjustments at your end to make it bigger again.
make a mock up with posterboard card to make sure before cutting into metal!

steve.

 

[rockyboy]

Very cool!

There is a thread around here somewhere with various opinions on how to adhere aluminum to foam, and I think one of the best ideas that rose to the top is drill a couple holes in the surface you're going to glue down, and then use epoxy with a little extra so it comes up and makes rivits through the holes. That should make this stick to a wing like crazy (I assume you're sticking this on a flying wing with that style mount, right?)

 

[Cigar Mike]

Well done. I have used a pop can with plywood firewall before on pushers. It works but I only do it in a pinch.

 

[Steve Fox]

Very cool!

There is a thread around here somewhere with various opinions on how to adhere aluminum to foam, and I think one of the best ideas that rose to the top is drill a couple holes in the surface you're going to glue down, and then use epoxy with a little extra so it comes up and makes rivits through the holes. That should make this stick to a wing like crazy (I assume you're sticking this on a flying wing with that style mount, right?)

sorry for the late reply, i got a temp ban because i told someone he was out of line for saying to another member that "i cant afford to by the kit" wont wash with him when people are starving!

anyway, back to the subject, its not on a 'wing' its on the FT Explorer, i used hot glue to bond it but using a very sharp knife i scored the surface but came in at an angle to 'get under' the surface and create a lip rather than just scoring it and i did that in every direction creating a diamond pattern across the surface to be bonded.

i also pre heated the mount with a heat gun and kept it running at a distance my hands could just bear to keep the aluminium from leeching the heat from the hot glue before i had the surfaces fully aligned and compressed.

 

[rockyboy]

sorry for the late reply, i got a temp ban because i told someone he was out of line for saying to another member that "i cant afford to by the kit" wont wash with him when people are starving!

I wouldn't recommend repeatedly saying what got you a temp ban in the first place. Just saying.

 

[Steve Fox]

I wouldn't recommend repeatedly saying what got you a temp ban in the first place. Just saying.

it was a stripped down summarized version, i thought about that and was carefull about what i repeated here, i was banned for personal attacks, i havent mentioned who it was about or what post so i think it would be very wrong to take action about that but you never know!

anyway, im gonna move on from that, you mentioned wings, is that what you fly? sooner or later ill end up building one just to see what they are like as its so cheap to scratch build an air frame.

ive built a number of FT planes and one from a member article also but have stuck with conventional wing single prop designs.

the explorer is my first pusher, im actually working on it right this second, its getting the full on treatment, APM flight controller, gps, airspeed sensor, mavlink osd, 433mhz telemetry, very heavy 3w 5.8ghz vtx ect ect lol

knowing these have a reputation for folding there wings in flight and that im going to be pretty heavy on the all up weight (1.5+kg), i put a carbon fiber spar across the center third of the wing and there will also be support struts going to the wings from a brace attached to the underside of the fuselage , my wing will only break if i crash ha ha.

 

[rockyboy]

anyway, im gonna move on from that, you mentioned wings, is that what you fly? sooner or later ill end up building one just to see what they are like as its so cheap to scratch build an air frame.

To quote an RC hero of mine "If it flys, and it's radio controlled, I like to play with it"

I keep track of all my projects over here so I don't forget about what I've got in the hopper to work on, and can find those old threads to update when something... let's say interesting... happens to one of them :black_eyed:

http://forum.flitetest.com/showthre...nch-Builds-Designs-Hangar-Queens-and-Failures

knowing these have a reputation for folding there wings in flight and that im going to be pretty heavy on the all up weight (1.5+kg), i put a carbon fiber spar across the center third of the wing and there will also be support struts going to the wings from a brace attached to the underside of the fuselage , my wing will only break if i crash ha ha.

Good idea on the spar, but also keep in mind with heavier weight comes higher stall speeds - it's going to land faster, sink faster, and be more apt to drop out of the sky at speeds and bank angles your other explorer is fine with. So don't let yourself be fooled into flying it the same way in the air because it looks similar to your other one - that way leads to the repair shop :black_eyed:

 

[Steve Fox]

the great thing about running the airspeed sensor on the apm is the ability to set a minimum airspeed for stall prevention in both fully autonomous and manually flown modes, useful when flying fpv and cant see a stall in the making like you can flying los.
its also used when performing auto takeoff and landings though i will almost always take off and land in full manual mode, things like that are cool but i want to fly, not have it fly for me ha ha!

if i choose to split the ailerons and add flaps, a nice feature is the ability to carry on having the split sections behave as ailerons until you order them too turn to flaps, with the airspeed sensor you can set flaps to auto deploy too and auto throttle up if its needed.

i enjoy flying my planes that have nothing but a receiver controlling them but in the right application, you gotta love flight controllers!

 

[Steve Fox]

im trying to get a headtracker working but i think i have a faulty gyro grr, on the pan axis the gyro only senses in one direction and auto returns to neutral , roll and tilt work fine.

its not communication after the tracker, its doing the same in the plotter when viewed on the pc as well as in physical movement on the gimbal, its def the tracker itself, just got to work out if its the actual gyro or the arduino nano its coupled with but the behavior suggests gyro

 

[rockyboy]

if i choose to split the ailerons and add flaps, a nice feature is the ability to carry on having the split sections behave as ailerons until you order them too turn to flaps, with the airspeed sensor you can set flaps to auto deploy too and auto throttle up if its needed.

I'm planning to program this setup on a switch using OpenTX for the mini telemaster I'm currently building. I figure with that much more area as ailerons during normal cruise flight I'll use a lot less deflection, and less drag should equal longer flight times. Plus it just sounds fun to mess with

 

[Steve Fox]

exactly, full size ailerons but being able to turn half to flaps whilst keeping half as alierons and therefore a tonne more control and less severe stall tendency in a turn than with flapperons

 

[Steve Fox]

also, it kind of sets you up with an element of redundancy, should one servo fail on a wing, be it inner or outer wing.....you still have the other functioning as a aileron